How to reduce Police Helicopter Noise Complaints – Policing Twitter Tips

A big problem Police Helicopter Air Support Units have to deal with is noise complaints from the public. Actively using Social Media can help reduce complaints against the police by keeping the public informed of why the helicopter is flying low over their house in the early hours of the morning. Having worked as the controller in a police control room for many years I have had to placate many callers angry at being woken up, or more commonly having had their child woken up, by a noisy police helicopter. Once I had informed them that, no it was not having a joy flight but looking for a burglar that had run into some back gardens or a suspect from a robbery, they normally calmed down.

Twitter (and Facebook) can be used in the same way to inform the public what they are doing. At little cost Police Helicopter Air Support Units can broadcast their deployment as it happens. An excellent example is the West Midlands Police Helicopter crew's extensive use of Twitter. They start with the time normally followed by a location and then continue with what type of call they are dealing with. All UK, European and North American Police Helicopter units should copy this type of engagement model. My only suggestion is that the tweets should include the hash tag #police to make each tweet easier for the public to find when searching Twitter to find out what is going on.

In this image you can see that the West Midlands Police Helicopter Unit are responding to direct messages from the public. In this case it was a question on how the weather affected the ability of the helicopter to perform its duties. This is great community engagement. The public get a buzz from being able to communicate with officers from the Police Helicopter. It's something they can tell their friends down the pub. It is all good publicity.